Tail Recursion in Common Lisp ???

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>]

It is my belief, based on what I know of the constraints various groups
feel they are working under, that there is no chance in hell that
required tail-recusrion removal will be added to Common Lisp in the near
future.  There's just no point in discussing this further.  If you want
a guarantee that tail-recursion will be handled well, use Scheme or that
subset of Common Lisps that are able to support this; if you want a
guarantee that your code will be efficient in Common Lisp, use DO.

I believe that tail-recursion removal will be ALLOWED in the final spec,
though some groups read the current manual as requiring a full call,
even from a function to itself, in case someone has installed a new
definition for FOO in the middle of running FOO.  We will discuss this
and, I hope, find a set of rules under which tail-recursion removal is
legal (but not required) unless the user has explicitly requested the
full call.  We will of course try to clearly document exactly what is
allowed and what is required in this area, once this has been decided.

-- Scott